


Me and My Girl

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-10
Updated: 2003-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill knows that Clarissa is the only one to truly understand her - the only question is, how far does that go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Me and My Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kanna-Ophelia

 

 

Going to bed in the winter term is not usually a tragedy. In summer, with the mellow light still spilling through the opened windows, it is a test of endurance - at least an hour left clear for riding, and instead of being out in the sweet golden air with Thunder's living power beneath her and Clarissa shouting laughingly across at her, to be forced to don pyjamas like a meek little schoolgirl and waste the valuable time. In winter, however, it is dark, and Bill is not the kind to risk a horse's precious legs on hazards unseen in the dark. Far better to curl up in dressing gowns, ignoring the repressing reminder of the darkness outside that a before-breakfast ride is impossible and satisfy the hunger through talking instead. 

Of course, all that rather depends on not coming back to school to find that your dormitory mistress has reassigned your beds, and the only girl who understands how you feel is no longer in your dormy. 

And why not? Sally and Darrell have been separated too, but there is sense in that, as Sally is unofficial Deputy Head Girl and the obvious person to head the second dormy. Bill and Clarissa do not take such a glorified part in school society, so there is no reason to tear them apart, except... But that is Bill's secret only, her personal private heart and soul. She is sure no one guesses, not even Clarissa, and the thought that anyone else knows how she feels is both degrading and ridiculous. She and Clarissa are special friends and they share an equally special love of horses, that's all it is, to anyone except Bill herself. 

Bill glowers as she wrenches her comb through her hair. Too long to keep as tidy as she'd like, with the ends stubbornly kinking into curls. She doesn't quite understand why Lady Carter was so reluctant to take her to get it cropped in the last few days of the holidays, although she supposes it's not really her friend's mother's responsibility. She would cheerfully have hacked the offending hair off herself if she had not been scared of a scolding from Clarissa if she bungled the job. Well, not precisely scared. It is ludicrous to think of being scared of poor little Clarissa, and if Bill is on some level quite terrified of her dearest friend, it is not precisely because she fears her temper. 

The others leave Bill tactfully alone on the first night back. Poor thing, no wonder she's in such a bad temper, they say. She obviously misses her brothers, or rather her brothers' horses and the long days spent riding with no school work to interfere - at least now her parents have finally accepted she has no use for the Higher Certificate in a life dedicated to horses. The girls skate around the patently obvious source of her black mood, the conviction that Clarissa should be seated on the next bed, glossy hair already neatly plaited against night-time tangles, green eyes shining as they plan rides and stables and a sweet glorious future spent among horses. 

The comb snags in her hair, and she takes out her angry disappointment on the tangle, tugging so hard that tears start to her eyes. 

"Don't pull like that, Bill, you'll have it out by the roots." The voice is as soft and as firm as the hand curling around her own, pulling the comb away from her head. Bill looks down at the small brown hand holding both hers and the comb, then looks up and flashes a delighted grin. Clarissa, wrapped tightly in a thick dressing gown, smiles back, taking the comb away from unresisting fingers and sitting down on the bed next to her. "Let me do it - you don't take proper care of yourself." 

"Changed dormies, have you?" Bill asks hopefully. 

"I should think Potty would have told _me._ " Because looking at Clarissa more than necessary is possibly unwise, Bill looks at Moira instead, without pleasure. The girl is handsome enough, but her scowl is not, and Bill has little affection for her. Sharp-tongued and bossy and as different from Clarissa as it is possible to be, and that's reason enough to detest her. "There's no room for another bed in here, anyone can see that." 

On the bed beside Moira, Sally's shoulders stiffen. Moira may have played dictator as Head Girl last term, but she made rather a mess of it and she's no longer the one in authority, and Bill wonders idly what it will take for prim little Sally to begin throwing her own weight around. Not that she cares much, not with light and deft hands in her hair, tangles submitting under patience rather than violence. Clarissa has long experience of dealing with her own thick auburn tresses, as well as hours spent grooming Merrylegs, although she would scorn to plait his tail like a show pony. Bill often suspected, leaning on a stable wall and watching Clarissa fussing over her beloved horse, that after a lifetime of the kind of solicitude given to eggshell china, Clarissa likes to be the one in charge and giving care. It feels queer to have her own special charge pet her like a doll, when she's always felt since that one afternoon of banging into a crying girl that looking after Clarissa is _her_ job, but dangerously pleasurable as well. Being the centre of doting attention is... extremely agreeable. 

"I only wanted to wish Bill goodnight." Clarissa seems unaware of any tension between Sally and Moira, her voice sweetly conciliatory. While she can and has gone along with defying Moira for Bill's sake, it goes against her own retiring nature, and Bill knows she is more than a little frightened of the harsh-voiced older girl. Bill feels a rush of protectiveness at the barely discernible tremor in Clarissa's voice. "It's first night back, after all, and no one cares much on the first night." A long speech for her to make to anyone except Bill. 

"Nonsense, Clarissa. You know perfectly well you're not supposed to leave your own dormitory. And Bill is perfectly capable of combing her own hair, what there is of it. You two can survive being apart for a few hours - you're as bad as the twins. I suppose we shall have Connie in here in a moment, brushing Ruth's teeth for her." 

Under cover of Ruth's indignant protests, Bill appeals to Sally. "Can't she stay for just a moment? We have a while before we need to go to sleep, and we're used to being together. We've barely had a chance to exchange two words since coming back to school." 

Sally rarely shows much emotion but Bill knows that temptation is warring with duty somewhere under her neatly brushed hair. Moira is perfectly right but also infuriatingly domineering. Besides, Sally's own friend is in a different dormy for the first time, so perhaps she feels a little sympathy. 

"So long as Clarissa is back in her own dormy by lights out." Sally sets her lips decisively. 

Moira sniffs and says something scornful about discipline and playing favourites. Sally points out, as close to anger as the somewhat cold-mannered girl ever comes, that _she_ is head of the dormy, not Moira. Clarissa and Bill take advantage of the argument to sprawl side-by-side on the bed, their heads close together so that they can talk in low voices. Their hands lie on the blanket cover beside each other, not quite holding hands, and the `not quite' is an insuperable barrier, despite the casual way other special friends have been known to hold hands around the school. 

"Miss me, old thing?" The question comes out as lightly as if Bill didn't care particularly what the answer was. But her law-abiding friend has broken dormitory bounds. Surely that counts for something. 

"Terribly. Thank goodness tomorrow is Saturday and we can go riding. I was so dull and lonely without you." There's no hint in the matter-of-fact answer that Clarissa has suffered anything like the agonies Bill went through in the holidays, and Bill feels her heart plummet again. Clarissa is her friend, her good friend, and missed her, and was naturally lonely in that big house with no one of her own age. It should be possible to be content with that. 

"Me, too," she says ungrammatically, trying not to show how very much she actually did miss her friend. She's not quite sure she succeeds; she's never had the art of hiding her emotions. "Thanks for the Christmas present, Clara. It was splendid." It was indeed beautiful - a dressing case of supple calfskin, a horse rather like Thunder etched onto it along with WR in gold, clearly as expensive as it is lacking in fuss, more the kind of practical dressing case that a man would use than the kind of frippery thing that would send Daphne into ecstasies. Clarissa is really very sensible about things like that. Bill loves it unreservedly, even with the initials of her given name rather than her _real_ name, and keeps the letter that came with it still tucked inside, rather worn by now. It's on her dresser, filled with school things and pictures of horses. "I'll give you your present in the stables tomorrow, when we're alone," she promises. "I was afraid it would smash if I posted it." 

"Presents are nicer in person." Clarissa shifts on the bed, surely to be more comfortable and not because she wants to snuggle closer. Bill forces herself to breathe evenly again. Perhaps keeping their faces so close is a bad idea after all, she suspects. Clarissa has the sweetest, roundest little mouth, almost a perfect Victorian rosebud, although no highly born Victorian maiden would be sunburned from riding even in winter. She may not be exactly pretty, her small face drowned out by her huge eyes, but it is impossible for Bill not to notice how incredibly kissable that full lower lip is. She bites her own, the faint pain bringing back some vestige of control. "I did miss you so dreadfully, dear old Bill. No one else understands." 

Sometimes it occurs to Bill that perhaps, just perhaps, Clarissa wouldn't really mind being kissed. There's something about the slightly parted lips, a rosebud on the point of flowering, and the expression in those oddly brilliant eyes, as if jade were capable of being melted into liquid. Bill catches herself shuddering and gets a firm grip on herself. Idiotic thoughts, and in the same room as Moira, no less! "Steady on. We're back together now." 

"Yes, we are." 

Oh, dear heavens, if Clarissa doesn't leave off with that sweetly serious expression, she _will_ kiss her and then the fat will be properly in the fire. Even if it would be Clarissa's own dear fault. There's one errant tendril of hair escaping her plaits, glowing copper against her tanned skin and the white pillow, and Bill's fingers twitch to catch it around them and bring it to her lips. She clears her throat, trying to find something to say, hating the fact that it's an effort. Until these last few months words, usually about horses, came easily to her with Clarissa if with no one else. 

"Darrell says Clarissa is to come back to our dormy at once." 

Gwendoline Mary is glowering disapprovingly from the door, accumulated hatred of Moira, Sally and Alicia, Bill and that _ungrateful_ Clarissa making her unwilling to enter the dormy. So wearying, Bill often thinks, to expend energy on antipathy to many people. Bill is quite sure Gwen doesn't know what it is she has to disapprove of; it's just generalised spite, a little more poisonous because even though she made it clear she didn't want Clarissa's friendship any longer, she still doesn't like the fact of someone she considers an uncouth tomboy being the one to claim the friend with the best snob-value. Bill doesn't know quite what went wrong between them, and Clarissa is too loyal to mention it, but she's terribly glad Clarissa shed her rose-coloured glasses along with her spectacles. 

"Yes, run along now, Clarissa," Sally says, obviously glad to hand the responsibility over to the Head Girl rather than allowing Moira to take authority. "Kiss Bill good night and go to your own bed." 

Bill doubts Sally means that seriously, but her skin burns hot in any case. Clarissa pushes herself up on one elbow, looks contemplatively down at her blushing friend for a moment, then her expensively straightened teeth gleam in her smile. "Goodnight then, Bill," she says lightly and, before Bill has quite realised it, she is being kissed on first one cheek and then the other in the French style, playfully affectionate (not longing, not passionate, but doesn't fondness count for something?) kisses. 

"Lay off the soppiness - a gentleman can't be expected to cope with it," Alicia calls mockingly and Clarissa sits up, laughing, her green eyes shining and her cheeks pink. Bill wants to crush her close and to roll over and weep as she hasn't wept since the night Thunder had colic. Her face stings with her own blushing. She feels like everyone in the room can read what she's feeling; everyone except Clarissa, innocent and loving and painfully oblivious as to what she is doing to her best friend. 

"Get on with you," she growls, tugging an auburn plait, and Clarissa slips giggling from the bed and flies out with Gwendoline, flinging back goodnights to the rest of the room. 

Bill rolls into her pillow and tries to ignore the good-natured teasing and Moira's obvious censure. None of them understand what it was like to be kissed in that cheerful, meaningless way... they couldn't. Being loved like a sister - or brother - seems perfectly all right to them, not something to be tragic over. 

She pulls the cover over herself and tries not to imagine it differently, the other girls not there and herself miraculously given courage. The tragedy remains. 

To her dismay the next afternoon is pelting with freezing rain, punctuated with brief flurries of hail in between, putting riding out of the question. They plan to go down to the stables anyway, to stroke and talk to the horses, but Miss Peters catches them fetching their oilskins and scolds them heartily for their lack of sense. Bill hates being put in the wrong by her beloved teacher. She's disappointed about losing her precious time with Thunder and still downcast from the night before. Clarissa is silent and a little nervous as they make their way back to the common room, teeth digging unhappily into her lower lip when she things her friend isn't watching, and Bill feels badly for making her unhappy over an innocent gesture, yet can't find the words to apologise. 

It's rather a relief when they reach the others. The gramophone is playing and Mary-Lou is singing along, more confident since blooming as Cinderella; her voice does not have the missing Mavis' power and richness, but it is sweet and true, happiness in every word. 

_When you've found the one and only,_  
 _Then you feel no longer lonely,_  
 _Life's a happy thing._

_Ev'rything was topsy turvy,_  
 _Life seemed all wrong,_  
 _But it came all right_  
 _As soon as she came along._  
 _Me and my girl,_  
 _Meant for each other,_  
 _Sent for each other,_  
 _And liking it so..._

Mary-Lou executes a few fairylike steps until Alicia kindly trips her, catching her before she falls because bullying Mary-Lou is no sport at all. 

Bill lets the words of the song run through her head. She smiles suddenly, catching a relieved grin in answer from Clarissa a grin that lights up her eyes and brings roses to her pale cheeks. I'm an idiot, Bill decides. It doesn't matter if I'm ridiculously sweet on her, I have her friendship and we're planning our life as happy old maids together in Cornwall, all horses and children and fun. And Clarissa is distinctly apprehensive of young men, except Bill's brothers, and the boys regard her as the sister they never quite had, so _that's_ all right; and then there's the memory of Clarissa responding matter-of-factly to some of Daphne's romancing, remarking that she doesn't expect she'll ever marry, Lord or not. Soft of Bill to build her hopes for life on such flimsy foundations, but there it is. Marvellous luck, to have a friend so sympathetic and loyal and absolutely perfect, as a matter of fact. 

And sometimes it is easy, so easy, to imagine that Clarissa feels the same way as she does, when certain looks and smiles make her suspect that her friend is... well, may as well be direct about it, in love with her too, insane as it is to think of someone so delicate and well-bred falling in love with a great lumbering tomboy like herself, and that maybe... Maybe next year, away from the school, living alone together and sharing their lives, it will all happen naturally and of itself. And if not... Well, dreaming does no harm. Silly to blow it all up into something desperate and tragic. 

Bill is laughing in sudden exultation as she catches Clarissa around the waist and twirls her into the dance, laughing half-protestingly. The other girls join in, pairing off, and there is nothing to be worried about at all in relaxing and enjoying the sensation of her hands fitting on Clarissa's waist, tiny under her blazer, and the arms wound around her own neck. When she begins to fret that Clarissa will over exert herself dancing, long before the young lady herself would ever ask to rest, they settle in the corner with a beautiful jigsaw of a troupe of circus ponies, the easy flow of chatter between them perfectly restored. 

Bill is perfectly content. 

She barely notices when the rain eases, until Sally and Moira begin to try and round up people to come to the gym for games. Clarissa, excused from any form of exercise as she is, doesn't answer, but she mouths "Shall we?" across at Bill and they slip from the room together. 

It's still cold enough that they huddle into their coats, the wind blowing in from the sea, but it will be warmer in the stables. Clarissa is evidently in as glad a mood as her friend, singing as they swing along the path, her slight voice caught by the wind and blown away. It makes Bill happy that Clarissa feels safe enough to sing when they're together; in group sing-a-longs, she retreats into shyness and won't let out a sound, and the pantomime would have been torture for her if she hadn't been distracted by her pride in her friend. 

She's taken up Mary-Lou's song: 

_Me and my girl,_  
 _No use pretending,_  
 _We knew the ending a long time ago._  
 _Some little church with a big steeple,_ *Just a few people that both of us know *And we'll have love, laughter,   
*Be happy ever after,  
 _Me and my girl -_

She breaks off. "It would be nice, wouldn't it?" she says wistfully, giving Bill a sidelong glance. 

For half a moment Bill feels like Clarissa has reached right into her and _wrenched_. Only a heartbeat until she realises her friend is merely commenting on what she sees as her own lack of personal attractiveness and the unlikeliness of marriage. Still, rather than answer that, because she has no desire to be married herself and the though of Clarissa marrying anyone makes her feel hot and ill, she answers what she wishes had been the meaning. "Yes, awfully nice," she says with full sincerity. 

She expects some kind of teasing about the unlikelihood of herself as a bride but Clarissa simply grins at her, with perfectly straight teeth and the most precious little crinkles around her catlike eyes. It should, Bill thinks rather crankily, be against school rules to be so utterly adorable. It's simply not fair to expect a girl to put up with _that._

They step together into the stables, pausing automatically to revel in the warmth and delightfully familiar scents and sounds. The rest of the school is nice in its own way but _this_ is home. It takes them a while to make their way down to their own particular darlings. Each other horse must be spoken to in turn and have their long noses stroked. The stables are empty of any other human life in this ghastly weather and Bill is free to focus on Clarissa as she winds up finally to drop a kiss on Thunder's nose. The big black horse, who sends timid Mary-Lou into fits of terror, submits readily enough to being kissed and caressed by someone who radiates horsewoman sense. 

Bill understands perfectly. She is not quite ridiculous enough to be jealous of a horse, but sometimes she comes close. 

The rain has started pelting noisily down again. Bill is glad, both because it gives them an excuse to stay a long time and because it makes it unlikely their little world will be intruded on by any first formers wanting to give carrots to ponies. She approves of pony-loving children, on principle, but they are rather inconvenient when she wants her friend to herself. She has turned her own attention to Thunder by the time Clarissa speaks to her rather than to a horse, and it takes her a moment to realise she's being addressed. 

"I'm so glad you're not cross with me any more. I can't bear being at odds with you." 

She glances across in surprise, the hand offering Thunder sugar dropping to her side, much to his loudly expressed annoyance. Clarissa gives her a wry look and shrugs. 

"Are you mad? Whyever would I be cross with _you_ , Clara?" The idea doesn't make any sense but she thinks guiltily of how out of sorts she's been since last night. 

"For - well, for kissing you." Clarissa turns abruptly back to Merrylegs, reaching up to caress his ears, but not smiling when they twitch away from her touch. "I know you loathe all that soppy stuff. I'm sorry." 

"Oh." She searches for the words, trying to find a safe path between giving away too much and allowing Clarissa's feelings to remain hurt, which is not permissible. She's always been a lousy liar, partly because she could never see the point when honesty is so much simpler. She settles on "I wasn't cross with _you,_ old girl," which is honest enough. "I'm just a cantankerous beast sometimes. And... I don't hate it. Not from you. I wouldn't hate anything you did." She stops there because she's already saying too much. 

Clarissa runs her hand down Merrylegs' gleaming neck, so close to the colour of her own glossy hair. "So... you wouldn't mind if I kissed you again? Or wanted to hold your hand or... or... something. Just sometimes." Even Bill can tell that her voice is too determinedly casual. Bill doesn't trust herself to look directly at her. If she's going to leap across the stables and smother her, she wants to be completely certain, first. After all - it could simply be that she's failing at being sufficiently... girlish. 

"Am I really that frightening? I'm an insensitive brute, Clarissa. I know I'm not very good at being a friend to you, sometimes." 

"You're not to say such horrid, untrue things. You're the best friend there is," Clarissa says, hotly, turning away from her horse at last in her indignation. "And I love you. So there." 

Bill abruptly wants to cry, which is so unlike her she doesn't know how to deal with it, especially as she also wants to laugh at Clarissa for sounding like a six year old. She leans her head on Thunder and mutters against his neck, "Love you too." The words are so muffled she's not sure Clarissa can hear them. It's enough to say it after two years of thinking it. 

There's a quick step behind her and she feels arms slip around her, a cheek pressed against her shoulder. "We're both such idiots," Clarissa says at last. "Do you think the other girls need go through all this fuss over something as simple and... nice... as kissing?" 

Bill longs to tell her that it's not simple at all. Instead she says, "I don't know. I suppose I'm still not as good as I should be at acting like a girl, even after all this time." 

"You don't need to act like anyone but yourself." Clarissa executes a kind of wriggling slide and duck under Bill's right arm, ending up pressed between Bill and Thunder, her small face looking gravely up. "The other girls do this all the time. I think, you know, the best way to stop being silly about this is just to... do it." She stands on tiptoe and her lips brush against Bill's mouth. 

Bill suspects, from the way her heart pounds and hurts at the soft touch, that this is only going to make her much, much sillier. She forces herself to smile. "Not so bad?" 

"Not bad at all." Clarissa seems a little breathless, Bill daren't think too much about why. "Now you have to kiss _me,_ or I'll be dreadfully hurt." 

Bill can feel herself tremble and doesn't have the least idea how to go about stopping. She knows she should be purely casual but it's impossible to do this as if it doesn't matter. She tilts her head down, just a little, and caresses the small, round mouth. The lower lip catches between her own and, for all her desperate attempts to stop herself, she pulls at it gently, just for a moment. It's so sweet it breaks her heart to release the kiss. 

"Bill, I'm... not entirely sure the other girls feel about being kissed like I do," Clarissa says softly. Her green eyes are miraculously clear and untroubled, shining like stars. 

Bill's all tightly wound up inside, as if something is on the verge of uncoiling violently, but all she can care about is that Clarissa looks so very _happy._ "I'm sure they don't feel like I do when I kiss you, dear," she says, simply. 

Clarissa _glows_ at her; there's no other word for it. "Do you know, I'm glad? I hope you don't mind but I intend to kiss you again. Rather a lot. You have no idea how much I always wanted to, you know." 

Before Bill can either agree or protest, her mouth is being smothered with kisses. She gasps, half-laughing, under the unexpected onslaught, scooping Clarissa literally up into her arms when Thunder noisily expresses his disapproval at two great girls bumping into him like that, and carrying her a few steps away. Clarissa just keeps kissing her as if she never intends to stop, whatever happens... quick darting kisses and soft lingering kisses and ardent vigorous kisses all mixed up together, like she's been holding them back for so long that they've burst out in a torrent of affection. 

Torrent is right...Bill is drowning in the sweetest way imaginable. She stumbles down onto a bench at last, holding Clarissa tight on her own lap, and very gently pulls her friend's face from her own. 

"Clara... you're shaking." The thin body is jerking violently under her hands. "My sweetheart," she adds in wonderment and the threatened tears in Clarissa's eyes spill over. 

"Just kiss me, Bill." The whisper is so soft that Bill can hardly believe it's the courageous girl of a moment before. She leans forward in response and this time Clarissa's lips part against her own and Bill is pressing her tongue deep before she's even aware that she would want to do something so strange... but it's not strange at all, it's something connected with the delicious aching tremors deep inside her and the feel and taste of Clarissa's mouth is the loveliest thing in all the world, more lovely even than the soft curves pressed against her own and small hands caught in her hair. 

She presses her face against soft auburn hair afterwards, and almost misses the shakily triumphant, "I _knew_ you were in love with me." 

She pulls back. "Why, you little..." She doesn't have words to express it. Somewhere between brat and darling, she supposes. "Why didn't you say something before?" 

There's still tears on Clarissa's cheeks but she's chuckling and as shimmering with happiness as a horse in full gallop, sheer wonderful life in every line of her face. 

"I didn't know." Clarissa puts her head down in the crook between Bill's head and shoulder, snuggling even closer, but Bill can still feel her trembling. Although maybe she's the one who is trembling, after all... It is so terrifyingly, awe-inspiringly delightful to have Clarissa in her arms like this. "Only, Mother gave me this book, and I think it was supposed to be a terrible warning, but..." 

"A book? I don't understand." Bill let her lips wander across flushed, tear-wet skin, melting from the luxury of being able to do so. It seems ridiculous... no books have anything to compare to this, here and now, the miracle of holding her girl on her lap with the familiar noises of the stable around them. "Clarissa, I do love you with all my heart. Just so you know," she added in a whisper. 

"It was _dreadful._ " Bill chuckles at the outrage in her friend's.. her sweetheart's... voice. "There was this absolutely frightful girl called Steven, and she fell in love with this utterly wet girl, and they were miserable and it was horrible and then that utter idiotic _beast_ treated Mary dreadfully and stopped... loving her.. and made her fall in love with a man _for her own good,_ because she'd _forced_ her into being... well.. Unnatural." Clarissa's indignation fades for a moment, as she kisses Bill's throat, which is more shiveringly intense than Bill could ever have imagined. "I know, dear. I love you too, so, so much." "Steven was supposed to be me, I suppose?" The idea hurt her, somehow, but it wasn't as important as the lips against her throat, the hand stroking her thigh under her skirt as if she was a cat to be caressed. Oh, no wonder the stable cats purr when Clarissa touches them.... 

Clarissa nods, her hair tickling Bill's face. "I was so _angry_. And I'm never cross with Mother... But all I could think was that you would never, ever be so stupid as to palm me off on some... man... and I would never be so utterly _futile_ as to let you, I'd chase you down halfway across the world and _make_ you come back... And then, _oh._ " She chuckles. "I can be dense, sometimes. It took me quite a few... minutes... to realise why I felt as I did about that book." Her fingers, idly stroking up under Bill's skirt, find the gap of bare skin at the top of Bill's stocking and caress very lightly. Bill shudders in response. "Mother did me a favour by making things clear in my mind, really," she adds reflectively. 

"I don't think... she quite... meant you to react this way." Bill gasps as the small hand slides around her thigh and down, pressing between her legs, redoubling the wet heat already sliding from her. "Clar... I'm not quite certain you should touch me there, sweetheart..." 

" _I_ am," Clarissa whispers against her throat, her fingers slipping up under the leg of Bill's knickers and rubbing lovingly against wet flesh. Bill sobs, pressing desperately against the sensation. "Or don't you like it?" One finger presses inside her, painful and miraculous all at once. 

"Clarissa!" 

"My sweet Bill." She never knew Clarissa's eyes could burn like that, hot and tender all at once, like lamps in the dark stable. "You feel so wonderful... my beautiful, beautiful darling girl..." Somehow through the chaos of sensation is amazement that Clarissa could call a lumbering unfeminine creature like herself beautiful with such adoring sincerity apparent in her voice. Before she gathers herself to say so, Clarissa cries out and squeezes her eyes shut closed. "Angel... what's wrong? Did I..." 

"When you... when you clench like that... oh darling so sweet I love you so sweet." Her eyes are open again and Bill realises how silly she was to think even for a second that Clarissa's cry was distress. She's crying out and sobbing and moaning herself, a second finger hurting-sweet inside, both moving and twisting as if Clarissa is trying to touch her everywhere all at once. She wants to make Clarissa feel like this, too, but she's helpless, her head thrown back as her throat is kissed over and over, setting it on fire, and those fingers... She's vaguely scared of frightening the horses, but she can't help it, she has no more control over her voice than she can control the helpless movements of her hips or the arching of her body. 

She feels sudden pressure on the aching spot just above the intrusive fingers, a kind of rubbing _pluck_ , and she screams as her body shakes wildly. 

She comes down to gentle caresses, worried ardent eyes. "Bill... I wasn't too rough? I just needed to... touch... And I wanted to make you happy..." 

"Oh, you angel." The sweet touches under her skirt are suddenly too much too endure, too sweet and intense when her body is clenching and shaking despite itself, so she gently takes the slender wrist in her hand and pulls it from her centre to her mouth, kissing the fingers lovingly, wondering at the fragrance - and does Clarissa have a scent like that? Bill convulses inside again at the thought. "How did you _know_ how to do that? Did that book..." It seems so strange to her, that Clarissa knows about all this... magic... when she didn't, that the height of her dreams had just been to kiss her... although nothing _is_ sweeter than kissing Clarissa, when it comes to it, even that moment when her world exploded into white fire. 

Clarissa flushes bright red. "It didn't say enough of anything... it was so frustrating, I needed to know how they became lovers in case you... wanted... so I'd... try and work it out, at night, by... touching _myself_ and seeing what felt... nice... and imagining you were with me, and..." Her voice dies away into embarrassment but Bill is burning all over again at the thought of Clarissa trying to work things out in her dear serious manner, gravely trying the effect of her hand between her legs... "It doesn't feel the same when I touch you, though," Clarissa finishes simply. 

"I don't think anything feels like... Clarissa, can I..." 

Lashes drop quickly. "Of course you can, donkey. What do you think?" 

"I think you didn't even wait to hear what I was asking." She chuckles, rather shakily, and presses her mouth against Clarissa's again, kissing her with lips and tongue until she's boneless in her arms and lets her gently lower her from her lap and lie her down on the bench. She moves so that she's kneeling next to the bench and her friend is lying with her head cushioned by Bill's arm, looking up trustingly. "Sweet little love..." She runs her free hand from shoulder down to hip, lingering over the areas that make her friend blush and squirm, trying not to squirm too much herself at the feel of her hand actually touching through Clarissa's blouse... touching... 

"Angel, will you let me..." She doesn't know how to ask for what she wants, so she very carefully lowers Clarissa's head to the bench, kissing her again, then lifts her fingers to her friend's tie. She watches carefully. Clarissa closes her eyes and is blushing furiously, so adorable, but not resisting at all, so she slowly unbuttons the blouse, dropping little kisses on revealed skin. Pulling the undergarment down is almost beyond her powers, she wants to look at Clarissa, so desperately that she's quite paralysed with terror at being close to doing so, but at last the small breasts are free, the tips turning hard in the cold. 

"Bill..." 

She read the tone correctly. "It's all right... you're so lovely, so very lovely, my girl," and how could she ever have thought anything about Clarissa was less than exquisite? The fine collar bone, the beautiful creamy breasts, so small and perfect, just like her Clarissa...She kisses the rosy brown tips, one after the other, and Clarissa makes a small shocked frantic sound. 

"You like that?" 

" _Bill_!" 

She chuckles and kisses her again, lingering over the second kiss, letting lips and tongue taste, then surrendering control entirely and taking it into her mouth and sucking. Clarissa makes noises so like her own that she knows it's the right thing to do. She allows herself to suck harder, working tongue and palate and lips and pulling hard, the sounds from her beloved friend filling her universe. Sounds she drew from her... 

"Bill, touch me now, please dear, I can't bear it, please please." 

She could never have imagined how unendurably sweet it would be to hear Clarissa begging her in that low voice. And she could never refuse her anything in any case... She lifts Clarissa's skirt, pathetically thin thighs and tiny waist and so very delicate and pretty... She kisses her stomach tenderly, slipping one arm around Clarissa's waist to lift and gather her up. Somehow she finds enough courage to take the top of the brown knickers and guide them down over narrow hips. 

"Oh!" A moan of protest. 

"Don't... don't be shy... I needed to see you... And I love you, darling, it's all right." She could barely find the words, her tongue clumsy with emotion. "Clarissa, you're so perfect, so glorious..." She can't help kissing Clarissa there, hot flesh under her lips, the scent filling her senses and making her drunk, then strokes and caresses and finally, following Clarissa's example, slides her fingers into intoxicating living warmth, marveling at the sensation and sight of her own fingers inside the girl she loves... 

She loves her hard on instinct alone, kissing around where her hand is playing, drunk on love, on the knowledge that any boundaries have dissolved between them for good. At that place that aches above her own entrance, there's a tiny part of Clarissa like a newly budding wildflower. Remembering how she felt when she was touched there herself, she kisses there, feels Clarissa convulse and rock around her and under her as a result. She turns her attention to kissing and pulling with her lips while her fingers work deep inside and Clarissa thrashes and cries out and goes deliciously mad under the caresses... so very lovable with all her reserve destroyed. 

When Clarissa quiets at last, Bill lifts her head and sees Clarissa pushing herself up with one hand to look at her with such liquid loving joy that Bill feels as if she's made fluid herself in response. She slides up to cuddle her close, smiling in response to Clarissa's open happiness. Her girl is shining as dazzling bright as her own auburn hair and there is overwhelming luxury in being able to snuggle as close as she likes, let her fingers trail lazily over the planes and curves another female form. 

"I knew being loved by you would be wonderful," Clarissa sighs, "but not... I didn't know anything could be so perfect. Except that I did know really because it's _you_." 

"You had no real doubt of me at all, did you?" Bill asks, wonderingly. "Except when I was a beast this morning..." 

"Of course. I knew you loved me, I just was too dense to figure out for myself _how._ You're not," Clarissa adds reflectively, "frightfully good at hiding your emotions." Bill must have looked a little taken aback because Clarissa giggled and kissed her chin. "I love it, dearest Bill. You're straight and true and I love you so terribly much. And I came to school this term meaning to make sure of you... as soon as possible." 

Bill took in the blush, and grinned. "Little horror. You don't look it, but you're a born seductress." 

"I am _not_!" Clarissa's protest dissolved into giggles as Bill tickled her waist. "Stop that!" 

"Only if you kiss me in apology for your wicked seduction." 

"That makes no sense at all!" But Clarissa's laughter isn't all ticklishness and her kiss is warm and tender, one hand slipping between them to touch her through her blouse. 

"Mmmph... angel?" 

"Yes?" Clarissa squeezed gently. 

"Stop that, it's much too nice... Clar, the rain has stopped. And you're..." She gestured downwards, to her friend's rather shocking state of undress. She had never looked more aristocratic, Bill smirked internally, assuming that the aristocracy in question was decadent... and heartbreakingly beautiful. 

"Oh, dear." Clarissa sat up hurriedly and they began to work together to make her look vaguely respectable, made slower by their hands bumping together and the need to steal kisses at frequent intervals. 

"Come on, old thing." Bill pulls Clarissa to her feet at last. "We need to get back before the other suspect..." Her voice trails off as it hits her, how difficult moments like this will be to manage, how terribly much more difficult it will be not to crush and kiss Clarissa every few minutes now she knows it will be blissfully welcome... Her throat is suddenly thick with the unfairness of it all. 

"Don't look like that." A delicate hand cradling the side of her face. "Not when I'm so unbearably happy... Dear Bill. We have two more terms, and then we have... forever. And each other, always." 

She should have known Clarissa could always read her mind... she melts into the offered kiss, and lets the words _forever_ and _always_ play over in her head... like angels singing or like the whicker of a happy horse. 

They pause to pet and talk to their neglected horses, then they walk back to school. Hand in hand, almost defiantly, because after all others girls do it. Simply because it means something different to them doesn't mean they can't... no one could tell from simple hand-holding what they had been through in the warmth of the stable, eve if it feels as if everyone should be able to tell. They whisper "I love you" one last time as they go inside, as if giving each other strength to be... friends... for a while. 

As they go in to tea, Bill pauses. "Clarissa... do you think Miss Potts read that book?" 

Clarissa hesitates, her brows lifting in confusion. "I don't think it's her kind of book somehow... why do you ask?" 

"Because we've had our dormies changed," Bill says, seriously. "She might have moved you to protect you from corruption." 

Clarissa looks at her with dawning comprehension and horror... and then the green eyes sparkle and she begins to choke with giggles while Bill stares at her in bewilderment. "I think she'd have been better off trying to protect _you_ from _me_ , Bill," Clarissa chokes out at last. 

Bill chuckles, the weight lifting, and they find the Sixth form table. "Evil seductress," Bill hisses into Clarissa's ear as they sit down together, Clarissa looking as demure and innocent as a Dresden shepherdess. 

"Did you spend all that time in the stables?" Gwen asks, her voice petulant. "How can you waste your time like that?" 

Bill squeezes Clarissa's hand under the table, and gives the other girl an open smile, saying agreeably: "I can't think of any better way to spend my time, can you, Clarissa?" 

Clarissa's smile is so radiant, Bill can't understand why the entire table doesn't light up. 

"None at all." 

The End

*Credits: Bill, Clarissa and Malory Towers are the creations of Enid Blyton. Lyrics to "Me and My Girl" are by L. Arthur Rose and Douglas Furber. Neither are used by permission, but with love.* 

 


End file.
